


A Thousand Times in Secret

by Thousand_Ribbons (Meridians_of_Madness)



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Betrayal, Crying, Dark Crowley (Good Omens), Gaslighting, Genderfluid Character, M/M, Manipulation, Mind Games, Oral Sex, Rape/Non-con Elements, Suicidal Thoughts, Trauma, Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-27
Updated: 2020-03-27
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:00:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23340598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meridians_of_Madness/pseuds/Thousand_Ribbons
Summary: Aziraphale has no idea that Crowley can stop time, and he would never believe what Crowley does when time is stopped.-Written for the kink meme prompthere
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 17
Kudos: 197





	A Thousand Times in Secret

_Judea, 74 BC_

The first time it happened was in Judea. It would be a while before a certain special someone was due to make His appearance, and so Heaven wanted to suss out the area, get the lay of the land. It wouldn't take long, really; after all, when you had made the Earth originally, you knew it pretty well. Just some forty or fifty years ought to do the trick. Aziraphale volunteered for the survey mostly to get out of a rather tedious series of meetings, and well...

Heaven was _boring._

God forgive him for even thinking such a thing, but it was, especially since things had gotten properly started on the ground. Humans, delightful sweethearts, were doing all sorts of interesting things, ranging from from language development to modes of transportation to cultural mores, and it was so much _fun_ to see them figure it out, all the little surprises and gifts that had been left for them.

The other reason he wanted to come down was a secret, one that Aziraphale didn't even tell himself, and he glanced over a bit bashfully at said secret as they stood in the shade of the oasis, watching the wild camels come down to drink.

“There you see? That little male got too close to the herd, and now the dominant male is going to come kick his skinny arse.”

“Oh, that doesn't seem very kind,” Aziraphale said, watching the largest bull chase after the younger one in the knock-kneed way that camels had. It looked incredibly silly until said camel was on top of you, and the little one was terrified.

“Law of the wild,” Crawley said loftily. “Kick or be kicked.”

“Well, perhaps not today...”

A small miracle reminded that big bull that his mates needed looking after, and with a final disdainful snort, he returned to them.

“Aw angel, you ruin all the fun.”

Aziraphale shook his head, turning away.

“That's hardly my idea of –“

In the middle his sentence, Aziraphale suddenly found himself choking, gasping for breath as if he was underwater, and his sides going in and out as he fought, panicked, for air. He topped forward onto his hands and knees, coughing hard as tears ran from the corners of his eyes.

_Dying, I must be dying, but why?_

He became aware through his burning confusion, through the pain of his somehow split lower lip and in the back of his throat, that Crawley was knelt beside him, one arm slung over his shoulders, the other taking off his head scarf and laying it aside.

“It's all right, sick it up,” Crawley murmured. “It'll be better if you do.”

Not dying, but it was hardly much better, when his body heaved and he brought up a copious amount of... what in the world was it? He stared in blank bewilderment at the mess in front of him, saliva, a tiny amount of blood, and something viscous and white that made his stomach turn again. He looked away, but Crawley leaned in to investigate.

“Oh don't _look_ at it,” Aziraphale cried, and obediently, Crawley drew him back to sit against a tree. The demon went down to the water to get him a drink in a clay cup, and Aziraphale drank greedily, eager for the fresh clean water in his mouth to replace the taste of... whatever that had been.

It only occurred to him belatedly that Crawley might have tainted the water with something foul for a prank, but it was sweet and good. Aziraphale leaned his head back against the tree, and only realized that Crawley had risen to shift the dirt around the mess he had made, to cover it up.

The demon came and sat down next to him, a serious look on his face.

“Angel,” he said, “have you been eating?”

Aziraphale blushed, a familiar tingle of guilt in his belly.

“Well, just a little,” he said hesitantly. “That very nice couple in Gath insisted I share their dinner with them after I got them across that river. It was... it was just some bread and a bit of soft cheese. It was ten days ago, and I ... I didn't even like it that much.”

“Ah,” said Crawley nodding. “That makes sense. Angel, you have to be careful. What happened to you right there, that's what happens when we eat, you know. Happens to me too, that's why I don't do it.”

“I see...” Aziraphale said, looking down. His fault. Of course it was his fault.

“Don't take on so,” Crawley said, tucking Aziraphale under his arm. “It won't happen _every_ time. Probably not even most of the time. You can still have your little treats if you like.”

Aziraphale tried a smile at that, liking Crawley's gentle conspiratorial tone.

“But you know. You had better keep it a secret, this business,” Crawley said, nodding towards the mess he had buried. “Wouldn't do to let Heaven know about it, you know?”

Aziraphale nodded. It was very good advice, and it wasn't as if he wasn't already in the habit of keeping things from Heaven after all.

Something about this one made his heart catch in his throat, however, and his breath hitched, tears welling up in his eyes.

“Oh... oh no, Crawley, I'm so dreadfully sorry.”

Angels were so shocked when he did this silly thing, and Crawley was right, was completely right. If they couldn't handle a few tears, how every would they handle _that?_ He turned away before he could see the disgust and confusion that was likely already in Crawley's face, but instead, Crawley pulled him closer.

“Yeah, it's no fun at all, is it?” asked the demon. “Look, just sit next to me, and we won't tell a soul, all right? This is just between you and me and the camels.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Our little secret.”

There was probably something in the rules about this, somewhere between fraternizing and consorting, but it wasn't as if he hadn't broken so many rules already lately. He sat next to Crawley, pressed up next to his lean body, and let his breathing slow down, let his body regain its balance.

The sun set, and Aziraphale closed his eyes, listening to the rustle of the palm leaves high above them and the easy in and out of Crawley's breath.

-

Wessex, 876 AD

Crowley was right. That unpleasant thing didn't happen all that often. Sometimes long decades went by, and Aziraphale forgot to think about it at all, eating whatever he liked and generally just having a fine time. When it did happen, though, it always meant a month or so spent mopey and inconsolable as feelings of guilt and an odd shame he didn't understand lay down over him like the a great wet wool cloak.

Those times, he often just took himself to bed and stayed there until things were a little more bearable, shaking under the blankets and trying to get warm. He didn't sleep, but being in bed, quiet behind a warded door, made that particularly misery a bit more bearable.

It helped when Crawley, now Crowley, was around. He never made fun of Aziraphale when he was laid low by this ridiculous ailment, didn't even remonstrate him beyond a cautious _so you've not told this to Heaven, right? You know they wouldn't like it._

He was coming to like Crowley more and more as the years went by, and it was in no small part thanks to the demon's gentle hands on his shoulders, brushing his hair back, stroking his face in the most deniable of caresses when he was set to rights.

“There now, nothing so horrible, was it?” he would ask, and Aziraphale laughed a little.

No, it wasn't. The humans were becoming increasingly inventive at horrible things, and a little bit of illness he had brought on himself was a tiny thing indeed.

Then in Wessex, Wessex that stood alone, things got worse.

They had started meeting more regularly since the days of the round table, usually in some out of the way place, some backwater inn or other. Aziraphale had even entertained thoughts of inviting Crowley to Lundenburg, where the old walls still stood, but _that_ wasn't going to happen so long as the demon kept _this_ foolishness up.

“No, not going to work, he'll never do it, angel,” said Crowley, shaking his head “Guthrum's a pagan through and through. He'd rather eat his own ax than kneel to someone who meekly let himself be nailed to a tree.”

“I'm not sure it's as big a leap as you think,” Aziraphale said stiffly. “Woden wasn't nailed to a tree, but he was hung up on one, wasn't he...?”

Crowley laughed at that, a sound that Aziraphale told himself did not make him one whit less irritated with him. The demon went about disguised as a raider these days, his hair long and held back with small beaded braids, his shoulders made wider by the wolf-fur mantle he wore. Aziraphale was reckoned tall in this age; Crowley must seem like a monstrous northern marauder to those that met him on the road. Aziraphale had reluctantly given up his own monk's robes in exchange for a mail coat and a sword. It really wasn't very safe to be seen as an unarmed Christian on the borders of Wessex.

“Well, well, look at the angel talking _comparative religion._ Didn't know you were allowed, or were you thinking of taking a walk on the winning side?”

“Oh, you are _impossible_ ,” Aziraphale exclaimed, “I don't even know why I-”

He tried to turn away, and then his knees gave out He hit the ground with a cry, throwing his hands down to catch himself. The road underneath them was actually paved, and he cut his palms badly, but that was less painful than the searing burn between his legs. He dutifully kept a penis, testicles and an anus there (honestly, humans got alarmed at the silliest things), but he had never had much to do with them, never paid them much mind. He was paying them mind now, as he felt as if he had been torn, as he ached so much that his breath left his body in a whoosh and he went down on his side, his cheek pressed to the good Roman brick, moaning like a wounded animal.

“Aziraphale!”

In a heartbeat, Crowley was beside him, trying to wrestle him up to a sitting position, but the moment his rear touched the brick, he was down again, shaking his head frantically. He felt _wet_ now, and the indignity of it nearly set his form on fire with humiliation. He had never experienced anything like this before, never had to deal with anything like what humans did, why now? What in the world was happening to him?

“Angel, you must stand up, all right? I can't carry you, you need to stand.”

Crowley was right. With the demon's help, Aziraphale staggered to his feet, absently retying the drawstring of his trousers that had come loose in all the struggle. He straightened his mail coat and his belt as well, the sword pushed almost in front of him. The small tasks grounded him, but Aziraphale still shook.

“Crowley, I'm sorry, I am _so_ sorry ...”

“Makes no never mind to me, angel. Come on. I've got a little place just off the road. We'll get you right as rain.”

It was Crowley, Crowley's voice, always so comforting and smooth. He just had to follow Crowley's voice, and it would be fine. It always was.

He must have looked extra pathetic, because this time, Crowley took his hand and led him through the woods, finally coming to a small cottage set deep in the trees. There was already a fire on the hearth and some venison stew bubbling in the pot, and Crowley offered him a tentative smile.

“There. Little demonic miracle, just for you.”

Aziraphale tried to smile at that, but some more of that disgusting wetness dripped down his thigh, and he thought he would be sick. He _was_ sick, and he backed towards the door.

“Crowley, I'm sorry, but...”

Instead of letting him go, Crowley came behind him, cutting him off from the exit, laying a firm hand on his shoulder from behind. Aziraphale yelped as the other hand came down to press firmly between his legs, right up against the source of all that mess.

“Hurts here, right?” he asked, and Aziraphale could have cried with relief.

“Yes.”

“I know what's up, then. I'm going to set you up a nice bowl of stew to cool. In the meantime, strip and lie down on your belly in the bed, all right?”

The bed took up a full wall, and Crowley at the hearth was close enough to touch from the edge of the bed. Aziraphale was reluctant to do as Crowley said until another twinge of pain made him want to roll up and cry. He stripped, looking down at his shoes, laying everything on the floor or over the hook on the wall.

As Crowley indicated, he lay down on his belly in the furs, and muzzily watched Crowley scoop him out a bowl of stew and set it on a shelf by his head to cool. It smelled very good, and Aziraphale relaxed a little, or he did until Crowley came to sit on the bed beside him.

“Hey. Hey, it's me, it's going to be all right,” Crowley said soothingly, rubbing gentle circles into his bare back. Aziraphale was certain he shouldn't have allowed it, but it felt so good, despite the ache below.

“Will it?” he asked, shamefully desperate for comfort, and Crowley made a humming noise of assent.

“Uh-huh. I'll take good care of you, angel. Just... I'm going to have to touch you, is that all right?”

“'m _disgusting_ ,” Aziraphale muttered burying his face in the furs, but Crowley only ruffled a long-fingered hand through his hair.

“No. Never. Not to me. It's just these bodies are a little tricky. I bet I know what happened, too.”

“Do you?”

“Yeah, think so. But I need to touch and look, all right? Will you let me?”

“I... I suppose.”

“No. Sorry, I think I need more than that. You know that that whole area's a bit dicey, right? You ought not touch anyone there without their complete and total yes. If I'm going to touch you –“

“Please, Crowley,” Aziraphale said, his voice shaking.”Please, will you...”

“Say it, angel. Touch you where?”

“Will you please touch me between my legs? Where it hurts?”

Something in him warmed at the demon asking for permission. Was it some long-forgotten remnant of goodness, or some latter-day swipe at something that felt right, somewhere in his demonic spirit? Either way, it made Aziraphale shiver with longing and an odd kind of pain.

“All right, angel, good enough. Please try to relax. It might hurt even if you do, but please, all right? I don't want to hurt you.”

Aziraphale nodded, taking a deep breath and then losing most of it as Crowley spread his cheeks apart. He felt more of that wetness dribble out, and he groaned softly, burying his face in the furs.

Crowley didn't seem disgusted at all, however, and instead ran the pad of one finger around the rim of Aziraphale's hole, the flesh there hot and sore and tender.

“Poor sweet thing,” he murmured. “Just _look_ at you.”

“Crowley –!”

“Nothing to be ashamed about, angel. Just let me do what I need to do.”

Aziraphale started to nod, and then gasped instead as Crowley sunk first one finger deep inside him, and then another. His hands fisted in the furs as he bore the shallow investigatory thrusts as stoically as he could. They seemed to go on forever, but finally, Crowley pulled away, wiping his hand with a cloth.

“Is it bad?”

“Hush, angel, I've got this.”

Aziraphale watched as Crowley poured some water into a bowl from a nearby bucket, and with a touch, set it steaming gently. He soaked a cloth in it, and wringing it briefly, pressed it right against the spot on Aziraphale that hurt the most. The heat was momentarily unbearable, and then Aziraphale moaned with relief as it began to leach some of the soreness away. He relaxed by degrees until he was flat on the mattress, losing track of how many times Crowley rinsed out the cloth and repeated the motion. It was gentle, so perfectly gentle. No one had ever touched him so gently before.

There was no reason for him to start crying.

The tears came singly at first, but then, like sparrows, in battalions, and then he was sobbing into his arms, crying hysterically enough that he wasn't sure he could stop. That was _even more terrifying,_ and he sobbed more, until Crowley, unable to soothe him with words or gentle petting, climbed into the bed with him.

“There, there, angel, it's all right. Shush. It's all right. I'm here, aren't I? You're not dying. It won't hurt forever, you'll be right as rain in a few days.”

“I won't be, I won't,” Aziraphale insisted, but Crowley astonishingly pressed a kiss to him temple, firm and sweet as if he had done it a million times before.

“You will be,” Crowley said easily. “Trust me.

God help him, but he did.

Crowley let him stay where he was, curled up in Crowley's arms, Crowley's wolf-fur mantle pulled off to cover them both, for what felt like hours. He didn't sleep, but instead he stayed worriedly awake, desperately in need of Crowley's comfort, dreading the moment that it would end.

Finally, it did, and he had to stifle a wounded cry of protest when Crowley pulled away.

“How're we feeling? Better?”

 _Not really,_ Aziraphale thought, but that wasn't quite true. He was still dreadfully sore and there was something damaged about him beyond that, though he didn't understand what, something deep inside, but that felt familiar too, so he disregarded it. Gingerly, he reached back to brush tentative fingers against his hole, wincing back at how sore it still was.

“Crowley, what do you think happened?”

“It's corporation trouble,” Crowley said. “These bodies aren't really meant to last this long.”

Aziraphale frowned.

“That can't be right. I was told this would serve every purpose I had on earth into perpetuity.”

Crowley shrugged.

“That's my best bet, anyway. No one below comes up to use their corporation as much as I do. Does anyone in Heaven?”

Aziraphale reluctantly shook his head. It had been a little different in the old days, couldn't walk past a bush without an angel lighting it on fire, but he had been Heaven's only representative on Earth for almost a thousand years.

“Well, there you are,” Crowley said. “And you can requisition a new one, of course –“

“But I like this one!” He still did, didn't he? Yes, he did.

“Me too,” said Crowley with a laugh. “Like I said, you can requisition a new one or you can just let it heal. It _will_ heal. You're not even human, you've got no use for that area. It'll heal up just fine in a few days, a week tops.”

“And I'm just to... bear it?”

“Miracle might look a little weird on the boards, but you know Heaven better than me.”

Aziraphale winced.

“No, no, you're right. And you're sure it will heal?”

“On my honor,” Crowley said. “Here, that stew ought to be just about cool enough for you. Why don't you cover up and have some?”

Aziraphale realized he was still completely naked in front of the demon. Standards of clothed and unclothed came and went like the wind, and these days people rain through the rain in the altogether to get clean, but there was always something about being entirely bare under Crowley's golden gaze. He blushed as he pulled the covers up around himself and reached for the stew.

It was just the right degree of warm, and he ate it on his belly, telling himself to be patient, telling himself it was just the way it always was.

He was the only angel on earth, but...

He glanced at Crowley, who was poking the fire a bit higher.

He was less alone than he had been.

–

_London, 1812_

It was a bastard dark winter, so London's elite lit up the halls, burning their lamps and candles late into the night, and holding not just the dark at bay but the cold as well. The salon Aziraphale was attending was a scandalous thing, but even lovely Mrs Carbury kept the lights up and the whole place glowing. It felt to Aziraphale, passing currently as the widowed Mrs Fell (husband dead of dysentery on the Peninsula, very sad), as if the laughter of her clever friends was at least as warming as the lamps.

She was making the rounds, introducing this poet to that patron, this artist to this model, when she felt a warm shiver run up her spine, turning just in time to see Crowley at the door.

 _Oh how fine he looks in the recent fashion,_ she thought before she remembered she wasn't meant to be thinking of him quite like that. He wasn't a soldier for this go-around, instead keeping the sleek dark lines of a man about town, and he came immediately to her side to take her hand and bring it to his lips.

“I heard about a widow playing guardian angel to all of London's poets this season,” he murmured,” but I hardly thought it was you.”

A casual miracle made the people around them think it quite appropriate that the newcomer was so intimate with the respectable widow lady, and she turned to him with a smile.

“There, now we can talk,” she said to him, but he only frowned at her, looking her up and down.

“Are you quite serious with this, angel?” he asked, and she blinked.

“What – are you speaking of my corporation, my dear?”

The _my dear_ slipped out, not for the first time, but Crowley barely seemed to notice.

“Yes,” he said. “Really, now.”

“You've seen me like this before,” she protested. “In Picardy, in Florence...”

“Yeah, where you were decently covered,” he retorted. “Not like this.”

Aziraphale looked down at her dress, fine thin wool woven to shimmer a deep blue in the firelight. She had discarded her muff and fur wrap with the maid of course, and in the warmth of the wealthy Carbury house, she was not the least chilly with the single wool layer over her petticoat and chemise. The neckline of her gown swooped very low, but it wasn't like she was baring her shoulders or her arms like a much younger girl.

“Oh, Crowley, it is merely the fashion.”

“It's obscene,” he said, and she blinked at the darkness in his voice.

“Why, I would have thought that a demon would –“

“You ought to go change. It doesn't suit you,” Crowley bit out. “I don't like it.”

She scowled, more aware of such tactics in this body than she had been in the other.

“Then don't like it,” she fired back. “And I don't have to stand here and listen to you.”

Aziraphale turned, and she cried out as she stumbled back, going down on one knee. She thought she had somehow stepped on her own skirts, but when she looked down, her skirts were pooled around her, not under her foot. However, the front of her dress was ripped down to the high waist, the chemise underneath it neatly sliced open and her reed stays underneath had the laces cut. Her breasts hung half out of her clothes, pale and round and obscene, as Crowley had said. One _was_ completely out, the nipple looking raw and red, and desperately she reached for the hanging flap of fabric to try to cover herself.

There were cries around her, and at first Aziraphale thought that they were scandalized by what a mess she had made of herself, but instead it seemed as if the ceramic teapot and and cups of very expensive lapsang souchong had been swept clear of the low table, shards of china everywhere.

She was still trying to tug the scraps of fabric over her bared chestwhen a weight fell over her, cloaking her. She realized with belated surprise that it was Crowley's jacket, leaving him in only a blinding white shirt as he helped her to her feet and towards the door.

“Come on,” he said urgently. “You can't be seen like this...”

She took a step and nearly buckled at the pain radiating from between her legs, not her anus this time, or at least, not _just_ her anus. This time it was her vagina that ached worse, a grinding raw thing that made her want to double over with cramps.

“Crowley,” she said desperately.

“Come on. This is a Madsen house, there's always guest bedrooms this way.”

Crowley sounded almost as afraid as she felt, and that was why she allowed him to hurry her through the dark halls, keeping the servants blind with a small infernal miracle until they came to a door that Crowley opened and then locked with a snap of his fingers behind them. Another snap lit the lamps and then he was guiding her into the bed as she cried out again.

“Crowley, what's _happening?”_

“I don't know,” he said. “I'm sorry, love, I don't know why I … I don't _know._ ”

Was he talking about the terrible pain between her legs again or was it something else? She couldn't tell. The ache throbbed through her body, and she had to take shallow quick breaths to calm it. The hurt was dimming slowly, but it was something savage pressed to her, a memory, a beacon of pain that signaled desperately for help.

“Crowley, Crowley, _please,”_ she managed.

 _Fix it,_ she meant, and he always had, when he had been nearby. He _always_ had, and when he wasn't around she cried for him so piteously that it shamed her to think about it.

“Shush, shush, sweetheart, just let me think, give me just a minute.”

He started to push her skirts aside, and it was only then that she realized they had been split down the front from waist to hem, her petticoat as well. Her legs gleamed pale in the lamplight, and she gasped at the bright blood between them.

“Is it... Am I _menstruating_?” she exclaimed in shock, and Crowley's quick gold eyes flicked up to meet hers.

“Dunno, maybe? How do you feel?”

“It hurts,” she said, and he bit his lip.

“Let me see?”

“Yes, of course...”

The routine was familiar by now. The cloth, the water, the warm wet press against her poor abused flesh. This time, the flesh that was affected was new and strange, and she whimpered as he worked over her. When he pressed a finger inside her vagina, it made her groan, throwing one arm over her eyes as she bore it, waiting with tension wired through her frame for it to be done.

“Okay, the bleeding seems to have stopped,” he said. “Angel, were you a virgin?”

Aziraphale blinked at him.

“Am,” she said in surprise. “I am a virgin. I've never lain with anyone, in any form.”

“Oh, yes, I knew _that._ I only meant... that is, _this_ form...”

“Crowley, what _is_ it?”

“Your hymen tore,” he said heavily. “I didn't expect... yeah.”

She shifted experimentally, wincing at the pain. The old problem had returned, and her rear hole was tender as well, but her vagina was a new ache, sharp and bright.

“Yes, I suppose it could be that,” she said cautiously. “But why that? And why now? And my...”

She looked down at her breasts, now entirely bared by their rush to privacy. It seemed silly to cover them up with Crowley, who had already seen so much more of her. They were felt sore, the soft flesh somehow bruised, and when she grazed her fingertip across one nipple, she shuddered at the bright spark of pain.

“I need to go to Heaven,” Aziraphale said finally. “Something is very wrong.”

“Don't!” Crowley said, grabbing her hand. He held it so hard it hurt, and she stared into his desperate eyes.

“What?”

“Don't,” he repeated. “They can't help you. They can't. You know they can't, you tell me how useless they are all the time.”

“Perhaps a new body wouldn't be such a bad thing,” Aziraphale said hopefully. “A fresh start, something new, that might be good. You said yourself these corporations weren't meant to last forever.”

“But I – “ Crowley swallowed whatever he was going to say. “This feels like some kind of... Look. Look. Just stay, all right? I'll stay close by, we'll keep an eye on you, and if it happens again, you can go right home. I swear, I'll walk you to the stairway myself. But... but just stay. That had to be something just working its way out of your system, something about trying a new presentation for the first time. It's been, what, almost six hundred years since Italy?”

“Nothing like this happened in Italy,” Aziraphale said, but she was already hesitating.

She didn't _want_ to go back to Heaven, not when they were growing every more insufferable as Armageddon bore down on all of them. She wanted to stay on Earth, and if Crowley was going to be around...

She wanted to stay with Crowley.

“All right,” Aziraphale said, relieved not to have to go up and deal with Gabriel again. “I'll stay. But the first sign of trouble...”

“I'll send you home. I promise.”

They sat for a while in silence, Aziraphale curled on her side, Crowley still holding her hand. Somewhere far away, she could hear the salon rolling forward without either of them, and that suited her just fine.

“Getting a little stiff in this chair, angel,” Crowley said presently. “Any room in that bed for someone who's going to be your guardian demon for the next while?”

“Certainly not,” Aziraphale said primly. “I am a decent woman-shaped being of ineffable light, and I do not share.”

“Could try to make you feel better. I've got a tongue that's good for all sorts of strange things.”

She rolled her eyes as he licked between his two spread fingers, reaching back for a pillow to throw in his face and hitting with unerring accuracy.

“Don't be disgusting.”

Crowley's laugh was soft and, though he would deny it, kind.

“All right, angel.”

-

London, 2008

 _Alcohol. Quite extraordinary amounts of alcohol,_ Crowley had requested, and these days, with Heaven breathing down his neck, it felt as if Aziraphale was always turning him down. He could at least handle the alcohol. He went to the locked liquor cabinet at the back of the shop as Crowley prowled the room behind him.

Aziraphale came up with a fine Bordeaux from Médoc and of course the ever-present Talisker whisky. He was just rising to his feet, thinking that the mirror over his liquor cabinet needed a good scrub.

A movement in the glass caught his eye, and he saw Crowley reflected behind him, a vision in black, his fingers pointed down and ready to snap up in a demonic miracle.

_What is he doing –?_

Then Aziraphale was on the ground, his body aching as Crowley came to comfort him, to rub his back, to murmur those soft comforting things again. He was shocked to find that even as their entire history on Earth together revealed itself to be a nightmarish betrayal, that Crowley's hands on his body felt good, that Crowley's words in his ear soothed him, and that despite everything that Crowley had done, he still wanted this part of it. Always had. Perhaps he always would.

 _It's the end of the world,_ Aziraphale thought wildly, and he thought of holy water and then of hellfire.


End file.
